US death toll rises amid new clampdown on insurgents

Fourteen US soldiers and marines have been killed in Iraq in the past three days, mostly in a surge of attacks in and around Baghdad that has coincided with a new US-Iraqi operation to take the fight to al-Qaida militants and other insurgents.

The latest offensives, which have begun in the last week, follow the build-up of US military forces in Iraq to 156,000 soldiers and aim to deny militants sanctuary in the farmlands and towns surrounding Baghdad.

US commanders have already said that they anticipate greater casualties, and yesterday the military reported a succession of incidents. The deadliest attack was a roadside bomb that struck a convoy in north-eastern Baghdad yesterday, killing five US soldiers, three Iraqi civilians and one Iraqi interpreter.

In another attack yesterday, a rocket-propelled grenade struck a vehicle in northern Baghdad, killing one soldier and wounding three others.

On Wednesday, a powerful roadside bomb killed four US soldiers and wounded another in western Baghdad, while two marines died in fighting in Anbar province, to the west of the capital. Two other soldiers were killed in an explosion southwest of Baghdad on Tuesday which was only announced yesterday. A total of 3,545 US soldiers have been killed since the start of the war in March 2003.

Elsewhere, a suicide bomber killed 16 people yesterday by ramming his truck into a government building in a town near the northern city of Kirkuk.

The latest military report on the US offensive in the Diyala province, north of Baghdad, said US-led forces had killed 41 insurgents, discovered five weapons caches and destroyed 25 bombs and five booby-trapped houses.

But a US air strike aimed at a booby-trapped house in the provincial capital, Baquba, missed its target and "accidentally hit" another structure, wounding 11 civilians, the military said, adding that the incident was under investigation.